Talk: Chemical biology and natural product based drug discovery

Prof. Jon Clardy obtained his BS degree from Yale University and his PhD from Harvard University – both in chemistry. He has served on the faculties of Iowa State University and Cornell University, and he is currently the Hsien Wu & Daisy Yen Wu Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School where he has been for fifteen years. His research has focused on naturally occurring biologically active small molecules, their macromolecular targets, and their roles in biology and medicine. He research was recognized early in his career with academic prizes as a student and awards from both the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation for beginning scholars. More recently he was elected as a Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academy of the American Society for Microbiology. He has also served as both a Department Chair and Associate Dean at Cornell, and at Harvard he founded and co-directed the Chemical Biology Graduate Program. He has taught throughout his career in a variety of contexts from large undergraduate lectures in beginning organic chemistry, for which he was awarded the Clark Teaching Award from Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, lecture courses for graduate students, and lecture courses for non-science majors. He co-taught Molecules of Life Course in Harvard’s General Education curriculum for ten years, and he currently teaches a small seminar for first-year undergraduates.